It is genuinely painful to watch their inventory discipline. We have brands in our lineup sitting at 90 plus days supply. Toyota is at 35. That gap doesn't happen by accident. It's years of production restraint when everyone else was stuffing the channel.

I said this in a meeting once and got a lot of uncomfortable looks but the EV mandate era may have actually hurt some OEMs competitively by forcing them to divert engineering and capital away from powertrains they could win on. Toyota never stopped improving the hybrid drivetrain. We stopped improving combustion to fund BEV programs that are now being cancelled.

The $1 billion investment Toyota announced for their Kentucky and Indiana plants is worth paying attention to. They’re committing capital in a down market. That’s what confidence in your own product strategy looks like. Most of us are in freeze mode right now.

Hyundai and Kia deserve a mention here too. Their electrification strategy was more balanced than the US domestics and their product quality has been strong. They're not at Toyota's level on pricing power but they're in a much better position than Stellantis or Ford on the EV hangover.

I've been selling for 14 years across three brands. Toyota customers are different. They come in knowing what they want, they're not waiting on an incentive to pull the trigger, and they rarely need heavy financing support to make the payment work. That's what pricing power actually looks like at the ground level. When I moved to my current brand I had to relearn how to sell, because now the deal only works if everything lines up perfectly.

Toyota’s hybrid strategy is clearly winning the long game.

Spot on. While everyone else chased the "all-electric" hype to appease Wall Street, Toyota stayed focused on what consumers actually need. That inventory discipline is terrifying for competitors; they’ve managed to dominate through common sense and reliability while everyone else is stuck with a massive EV hangover.

It’s wild seeing the data. Toyota’s refusal to over-manufacture and their commitment to hybrids when it wasn't "cool" has put them in a dominant position. Most OEMs are now desperately playing catch-up to a strategy Toyota perfected over a decade ago. Hard to argue with those numbers.

Toyota’s biggest strength is ignoring the noise. They didn't let Wall Street dictate their engineering roadmap. By doubling down on hybrids, they’ve managed to capture the massive middle ground that isn't ready for full BEVs yet. It’s a masterclass in long-term strategic planning.

The angle I have not seen raised is what Toyota's discipline costs them in conquest. When your days supply is under 50 and you are not discounting, you win on residuals and brand perception but you also lose buyers who need a deal to make the payment work today. In this rate environment that is a real population. Their conquest numbers in certain segments are softer than the overall strength story suggests. The long game is right for them. Short term there are customers walking off the lot to brands that are willing to make a deal.